Shoal

Nicolás Poblete

Traduzido por: Claire Hirsch

Obra de arte Mary Beth Shaw

Evacuation Plan. That’s what it
says on the map attached to the wall in each of these rooms. The evacuation
plan is the drawing of the labyrinthine interior of this facility, which
provides the key to escaping in case the misfortunes inside it are more dangerous
than those taking place on the outside, in the city, and for which it will be
imperative to know how to escape.

The maid reminds me that she is not a
maid, she is “Norma,” the nurse. She explains that this room is not a “suite”
in a hotel; it is 302, patient in rehab. She observes me with the same face
with which she has undoubtedly looked at hundreds of people, many in situations
similar to mine. I don’t know her but I can see in her expression, in her
gestures, the repetitive movements, the utter lack of interest with which she
spells out her instructions and turns me into a case number. Norma looks at me
with quiet contempt but professional assertiveness, because for her it’s no
secret how I ended up here, in this very room, 302.

Who
arranged this room for me? When are the visiting hours?

I
cannot ask too many questions, I don’t want to remember… flashes from the park,
me sprawled out in the blackberry bushes, the thorns scratching my legs, a dog
licking my ear, except at that moment it wasn’t a dog but an enormous
terrifying animal, rows of fangs, foaming and slobbering all over my face. A
black beast emerging from nowhere, with sharp claws and a pointy tail, just
like those pictures of the devil. And the empty bottle I used trying to defend
myself only further inflamed the monstrous wolf or whatever it was (it was
changing constantly, camouflaging itself, changing disguises every instant).
The empty bottle was useless, it struck a couple of hollow and clumsy blows
without even making a dent in the animal’s coat and then slipped out of my hand
right there among the brambles. My head was burning, it was sore and damp, and
my fingernails were dirty and stained with dried blood. Where were the others?
They had left me all alone! Who knows how long I’d been lying there, abandoned
in the park, and then unexpectedly the beast shrank. Suddenly it appeared to
crouch down, getting ready to attack me; it coiled itself even tighter as if to
spring, yet it didn’t, I lost sight of the demon. In a matter of seconds the
animal vanished, disappearing as quickly as it had appeared.

My
memory may be a tangle of wires, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t remember
certain things, it doesn’t mean that
this is the only place I’ve ever been, it certainly doesn’t block out memories of
other places.

Epilepsy.

I
must retrace my steps. More steps, as many as possible. Forgiveness. I think I
understand that concept, since in the dream (except I don’t know if it was in
that fog, or just upon awakening, or if it was a strange vision that came to me
after lunch as I tried to take a nap), in a suspended state I could just make
out my mother’s face, and my father’s, deformed faces, reminiscent of faded
photos. And as though someone had whispered in my ear, I understood that they
were two people from the past. And that they had known each other for a long
time before I came on the scene; long before I was born, they already knew each
other. And they have loved me, yes, I have to admit it, in spite of everything.
But they cannot do anything for me now, they cannot protect me any more than
this clinic can, with the Evacuation Plan and the warning it carries. They
don’t hold a candle to Norma. They haven’t the power to do any more than your
mother is doing, Cris, and they don’t know who I am now, never really knew me.
I am grown up, it’s true enough, that’s a coincidence, I think.

Unable to return
to my bed, peering out the window at the street, the tops of the trees in the
park illuminated by the streetlamps, the sky already nearly light. And my eyes
dilated, as if only they were witnessing the start of the day. Early, porous
light, like mist pressing up against the windowpane. Day still unwilling, violently agitated
elements still not totally prepared to return to their diurnal positions.

My father talking
on the telephone. When my mother called, “dinner’s ready!” and my father failed
to respond, a deadly silence… there on the chair, sitting, although awkwardly,
in front of the neatly hung-up telephone, as if he had fallen asleep in the
chair, waiting for a call, his head tipped to one side. And my mother leaned
over and touched his shoulder, and my father slumped to one side and fell on
his back on the carpet. And before going into the kitchen and turning on the
faucet to drink some water, to get ice from the freezer to make ice water,
suddenly my throat drier than ever, dehydration throughout my entire body;
before all that my father there. On the floor the contrast between the beard,
like a patch of uniform, blue-black fabric, and his forehead, extremely white.
It never occurred to you to ask me about any of that, did it? Avoiding any sort
of “heavy” or “disagreeable” topic you once told me, in the Chinese restaurant,
that it was better to be an optimist, that to be “negative” didn’t accomplish
anything. And the way your friends laughed when I came right back with, “An
optimist is someone who hasn’t experienced anything serious yet.”

They
laughed and you laughed, too, and they told you I was very nice, I had a sense
of humor and was ironic, a great asset. Then I withdrew to the kitchen, and on
the main counter, off to one side, there was the dish that was being passed
around and that we put there with the other waitresses, to have something to
snack on between coming and going, and right there I gulped down a piece of sea
bass that was floating in a pool of soy sauce. I swallowed another piece,
standing there, and Lavinia, the Sunday girl, looked at me with disgust,
because it was obvious that the plate was there for grabbing something on the
run, not for stopping and settling in to eat, as if I were actually paying for
the dish. And when I walked out, after quickly washing my hands and with the
taste of fish still lingering in my mouth, your friends were still laughing and
they called me over to their table and asked if I were free the following
weekend. And I told them yes, and looking at you, Cris, I remarked, “Cris
thinks that because the sun has five billion years left before everything
evaporates, that means there’s still hope, that means it’s impossible to be
depressed.”

Now
that really impressed them and they laughed even louder, like hyenas, and left
a big fat tip, and with that I thanked them, dishing out fistfuls of Chinese
cookies to each one. Fortune cookies.

My
father. For him everything was a matter of time.

It’s a matter of time, like a coup d’état,
like an epileptic seizure.

After that
episode with the telephone, the table set for lunch. And the following day my
mother removed my father’s place setting from the head of the table, as if it
were the most natural thing in the world, like someone invited to dinner
letting you know they can’t come. Just like that: one less.

And,
then, “aneurism.”

You
can speculate all you want, my father would say, but suddenly, it happens.

Unexpected
because, I now know, time is equivalent to being conscious. Like during that
one and only epileptic seizure, without consciousness, that is, without time,
without memory. Does that mean without a soul? Learning to pick up the thread
again, entering the dream and continuing like a novel with a bookmark in the
middle, at the beginning of the chapter. Why remember. It is necessary to
remember, that day, tearing out into the street and my father after me, the sun
almost setting, but still waves of heat, like messages, on the roof of a car.
On the asphalt. Jogging the memory. EPILEPSY.

As seen
through a telescope, the three of us at the table, eating, my father scolding
me, “disciplining” was his word, for swallowing without chewing, for eating
slowly or with my mouth open, “young lady.” For complaining about the taste of
the chicken, for splattering the soup or spilling the water on the tablecloth,
for not looking him in the eye when he spoke to me, or for not paying attention
to my mother when she ordered me to wash my hands before sitting at the table.
For speaking too loudly or for crying, implying that it was all his fault, and,
“Now that I won’t tolerate”; my tears trying to say that he was an ogre, that
he was a demon, and “Do you think I’m going to feel guilty seeing those tears?”
And my mother in silence, with the occasional, “All right, let the girl be,
she’s just a child.” Eleven, twelve years old? And only that one time I
rebelled. I’d knocked the glass of juice over onto the table, and my father,
hurling the piece of bread he was about to dunk in his soup shouted, “Are you
an idiot or are you doing it on purpose?!” And, inspired by his idea, I take
the pitcher of juice by the handle and deliberately pour some on the table,
soaking the napkins, watching the juice meander between my cutlery and my
mother’s, the orange liquid bypassing the basket of bread. My father gets up,
furious, and I take off running, a little chubby for my age, and my hair still
long, long until that age, “young lady,” I bolt, and my father grabs me at the
front door, I’m only a few steps out into the street, and he catches me by the
hair and drags me back and shakes me like an animal, and I fall down onto by
back and twist around like a cat, screaming until I can yell no more, and a
curious sensation of my eyes swelling up, my teeth chattering, my teeth like
castanets, and I feel a kick on the side of my head, near my temple, and
something in my mouth, like foam, like drool, a bitter taste. And that’s the
last thing I know, and the next thing I remember is a caress, a hand on my
face, a white space, morning, a spacious and bright place, someone ordering me
to breathe, to look, my eyes rolling in my head until they are able to focus.
On one side a poster on the wall with the figure of a man, all his insides
detailed: bones, organs, arteries, nerves. Red and blue veins branching out all
over the diagram. And then, back home again. Hearing voices, my parents
whispering together, as though in secret. I hear, “neurosurgery.” And from then
on, extreme care: “You have to be careful… epileptic seizure.”

“Like
a coup d’état,” my father would say. “You can speculate all you want. And
suddenly it happens,” he’d repeat. “That’s why I built that pantry myself,”
he’d say looking toward the kitchen with the outsized pantry full of cans,
preserves, bags of rice and pasta.

Epilepsy.
It might never happen again, or it could be tomorrow. You can speculate all you
want. And suddenly it happens. Like a nocturnal mosquito reconnoitering your
body. You don’t see it coming, you don’t see it leave, you only notice the
swollen, red skin where it attached itself to suck blood; what remains is the
itch. You don’t realize it’s been there until it’s too late, and it has already
feasted on your blood. Why remember.

Nicolás Poblete

Nicolás Poblete was born in Santiago de Chile, where he is a professor
and a prolific writer. He also contributes to scholarly publications with book
reviews as a part of his productive career. He has received a number of honors
and awards, including fellowships for his writing as well as teaching awards.

Claire Hirsch

Claire Hirsch was born in Boston and studied at Tufts University. She
has translated several pieces of Dr. Poblete’s work, most recently the bilingual
publication of En la Isla/On the Island.